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21
EVA
The interview is startingin about half an hour, right after they cover all the main news of the day, which they are about to start doing. Hana hasn’t so much as looked at me, let alone spoken to me, since our meeting on the steps.
We’re sitting in a small office with only a glass desk and four computer chairs in it. Through the blue tinted glass walls, I can see the main studio and the oval desk where the interview is to take place. An assistant will come and get us once it’s time, the host told us after he went over how the interview will unfold.
Currently the two news anchors—the man that will do the interview with us and his female co-host, a woman who has anchored the evening news since I was young—are sitting there, while a couple of makeup artists put the final touches on their faces. Before bringing us into this room, they did my makeup too, and the foundation and powder they used has dried to a thick mortar-like facade that’s pulling painfully at my skin.
“I’m having a very hard time understanding why you attacked me like that today, Hana,” I say.
She scoffs. “Don’t you? Come on.”
Good. At least she’s talking to me again.
“No, I really don’t,” I say. “The best I can come up with is that you’re jealous of me.”
That’s not what I actually think, not entirely, but I wanted to get a rise out of her and I succeeded. She swivels in her chair to face me, her eyes huge and bulging out of their sockets.
“Me, jealous of you?” she says. “Try the other way around. You were jealous that I got the letter and not you, so you wanted to prevent me from printing it. You wanted to be the one the killer contacted. I saw how your eyes sparkled when you saw that letter. And then you did everything you could to prevent me from printing it, including getting your boyfriend to officially stop me from doing it.”
I don’t see where she got that from, but fine.
“I did get the letter, you brought it to me,” I say mockingly and her eyes light up in such a rage I’m sure she’s going to leap over the table at me. I decide to push her a little further. “Did you write it, Hana? For the attention and the chance at a front page by-line? Or because it’s what you actually believe?”
Her chest is heaving and her eyes are on the verge of popping out of her head. “I would never… how dare you accuse me of such a thing… you wanna-be… you pretend expert… what do you know about me? Huh? You know nothing about me.”
“I know you suffer from a mental illness that makes it impossible for you to work sometimes,” I say. “And I know you believe that the best mental health treatments are only reserved for the rich and privileged. I also know you want to change that.”
“No, wrong, as always,” she says. “I guess all that snooping around you’ve been doing, asking my friends personal questions about my past got you nowhere, so you came up with yet another harebrained theory that has no basis in fact.”
Her face is no longer expressionless but twisted into a grimace that makes her look downright scary.
“You have a lot to answer for, Eva,” she says. “Poor Tara Merc would still be alive if you hadn’t needed to get your face in front of the cameras to goad this killer. And instead of answering for that, you decide to paint me as the killer instead. But it’s you who’s the killer. You who needs to always be right no matter who you hurt. You who needs to rock the boat until you’re the only one standing on it. You make me sick!”
She leaps up so fast her chair goes flying into the glass. “You know nothing and you understand even less. And you especially know nothing about me.”
But she doesn’t come at me. She storms out, through the door that leads back into the hall from where we came.
I sit back, realizing my heart is racing and I can’t get a full breath of air into my lungs. I was certain she would attack me. So certain I’m having trouble processing how come it didn’t happen. My baby is fully awake too, elbowing me in the belly painfully.
“What’s going on? What happened?” Dino is asking me and I’m having trouble focusing on his face. It’s all just a blur of bright spots and darkness. I just shake my head because I can’t speak yet.
“What did you say to her?” he insists.
“I accused her of being the killer,” I say. “She didn’t take it well.”
He shakes his head and grins. “No, I expect she wouldn’t. Have you been planning this all along? You might’ve mentioned something.”
Before I can answer him, both the doors leading into this small space open. A blonde young woman in a black t-shit with the network’s logo printed on it is standing by the ones leading into the studio, and Hana is by the one leading in from the hall.
“It’s time for you to take your places now,” the young woman says.
“Yes, lead the way,” Hana says cheerily and with a huge, pleasant smile on her face. There is no trace of the rage which twisted her features into something monstrous before she flew out of here a couple of minutes ago.
Dino offers me his arm to help me stand as I struggle to do so on my own.
“Will you be all right?” he asks in a whisper and I just nod and follow Hana and the assistant into the studio.
